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AKRON — The alleged triggerman in the killings of three men lured by phony Craigslist job offers
testified at his trial today, telling an Ohio jury he’s innocent and had actually been targeted by
one alleged victim who survived.

Richard Beasley could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of the killings on a
southeastern Ohio farm where he allegedly shot three men who responded to online job ads.

“I had no idea that somebody, anybody, had been killed down on that farm. I had no way to
know,” Richard Beasley, 53, testified at his murder trial.

Beasley denied involvement in the 2011 attacks and said that the lone survivor was sent to
kill him in retaliation for being a police snitch in a motorcycle gang investigation in Akron.

Beasley, a self-styled street preacher and mentor to a co-defendant convicted and sentenced
to life in prison, said that he met with the surviving victim, Scott Davis, but testified that
Davis was the one who pulled a gun.

“It misfired three times about two feet from my face and I ran into the woods and he ran
after me,” said Beasley, facing the jury and dressed in dark suit. He also claimed that the two
wrestled on the muddy ground and Davis ended up firing six shots.

“I said, `That’s your six,’ so if he was going to kill me, he was going to have to do it with
his hands,” Beasley testified.

Davis, who was the star witness at co-defendant Brogan Rafferty’s trial, also testified
against Beasley. Davis testified that he fled into the woods in Noble County, about 60 miles east
of Columbus, after hearing the click of a handgun, getting shot in the arm, and pushing the weapon
aside.

Prosecutors said Beasley and Rafferty used the job postings as bait in a robbery plot aimed
at down-on-their-luck victims with few family ties that might highlight their disappearance. The
slain men were Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron; David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Va.; and Timothy Kern, 47,
of Massillon.